A great day for seniors at the USN River Campus! Tuesday night the High School Softball team was able to celebrate their awesome senior Jessica Penilton '24, who has been a rock and leader for this growing program. Thank you so much Jessica!
A beautiful afternoon for USN’s spirit night event! But along with the community festivities, at the softball field the Tiger’s were having their senior night to celebrate their very own, Jessica Penilton ‘24!
Jessica has been a part of the USN community since Kindergarten and has been playing softball on and off her whole life, but she’s been on the high school softball team the past two years (since its resurgence) and she has been integral in re-establishing this softball program! Outside of softball Jessica is a multi sport athlete, competing in Swim as well as Climbing. She’s also a part of the black student union, ceramics and painting, girl scouts, and the breakfast club! She loves to watch movies and tv shows, play with her dog George, and loves to hang out with her friends! She will graduate with a 3.95 GPA and be attending Bowdoin University in Maine. In the summer she plans to go on a senior trip with friends, family, and work on some long awaited art projects!
To show Jessica how important she is, the Tigers decorated part of the dug out, made a big number 7 on the center field fence, and earned an awesome win, 17-2 against Glencliff. Offensively the team earned 6 hits, which converted to 10 RBIs! Some of those offensive highlights came from Jessica Penilton ‘24 and Amelie Soslow ‘25 executing their bunt plays, which led to runs earned, and them being safe at first! Yvonne Thomas ‘25 had a triple in the second inning and Alena also found her way to third on a great hit towards right field.
On the other side of the ball, the team played great! While they leaned on their pitchers to execute, the Tiger’s defense backed their pitchers up and only earned 1 fielding error for the game! Jessica Penilton ‘24 continued to have a great game, leading with 5 putouts. And Asauda Radford '25 had another amazing diving play with a quick flip to Zahra Ansari ‘27 at second base. Alena Ellis ‘25 was the Tiger’s opening pitcher and she took 60 pitches, earned 2 strikeouts, and held Glencliff’s BAA (opponents batting average) to .143! Ellie Rothman ‘25 closed the game and earned a 50% strike percentage and helped earn 2 quick outs with flips to first base.
A great crowd, a great win, and many great plays for our senior’s last home game of her high school career (along with some great tokens of appreciation from the team and coaches). As the season comes to a close, it’s amazing to see this team’s camaraderie and support of each other. Let’s continue to have fun and make the best of these last few games! Gook luck Tigers, keep it up!
This year’s guest lecturer was John Sides, Ph.D. who presented on reducing political polarization ahead of this year’s elections. The Buhl Lecture Series honors the intellectual legacy of the late teacher Arthur H. “Mike” Buhl aims to foster meaningful discourse among High School students.
USN is dedicated to fostering an informed and engaged citizenry through education about American elections. Our approach to teaching about elections is guided by research-based best practices and an awareness of students' developmental readiness and interests at each grade and division level. Click here to see a resource guide developed by faculty members who worked together this summer to design a plan for incorporating this year’s presidential election into the curriculum in each division.
USN debaters joined competitors from 35 schools at a tournament hosted by Westminster Schools. Congratulations to Eesha Nachnani '28 and Madeline Shinohara '28, who earned a co-championship in the 40-team novice division.
USN Mission: University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of Metropolitan Nashville, USN fosters each student’s intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.